“So many pedestrians, so little time”
— bumper sticker
There are many excuses commonly used to explain lack of progress in bodybuilding. Poor genetics. Poor facilities. No motivation. Illness. Your drug supplier is incarcerated. The list goes on and on. However, the most common excuse for chronic ectomorphy is also one of the lamest— “I don’t have enough time.”
With my good luck No Bull shirt on, I tried out a 10 X 3 front squat day. Having not done this rep scheme before (popular with coaches such as Chad Waterbury and others) on this particular exercise, I didn’t use the recommended 80-85% 1RM, but probably more like 70% -75%. I have to admit, rest periods after about set 6 -7 started to get longer and form started to suffer on later sets, so finding the right weight is essential for such a rep scheme. I’m getting old…10 x3 rep schemes are clearly not for beginners.
Personally, I don’t follow 10 x 3 rep schemes for long periods of time. I tend to throw them into a workout when in need something different, help get past a plateau, etc. and find it combines well with my Hybrid Training Program which attempts to be a balanced program for those looking for strength, hypertrophy, conditioning, and improvements in bodycomp.
Those interested in understanding the science/thought process behind the 10 X 3 should read Chad’s article aptly named The Science of 10 x 3 on T Nation.
Folks, take a look at my vid from the show I judged last night:
Despite the volume of research currently carried out on beta-alanine (a selection including my own papers) in relation to exercise based performance enhancement, one issues that still concerns me is safety!
To date we have data showing that Beta-alanine when given for up to 12 weeks does not cause and measured change in those clinical blood markers widely used to show safety. However, 12 weeks is relatively short duration, so what could be a danger from long term use?
Looks like another “high tech” form of creatine has got one foot planted firmly in the creatine grave yard. What is the creatine graveyard? It’s where forms of creatine – other then monohydrate – go when either science has shown them inferior to monohydrate, and or it’s life cycle of hype has come to and end.
I refer specifically to creatine ethyl ester (CEE). As with the many “high tech” forms of creatine before it, all manner of claims were/are made about how superior it is to creatine monohydrate (CM). It always starts the same. First the company will invent a long list of negatives about CM such as “poorly absorbed” or “causes bloat” or “is not stable” and then goes onto claim their form of creatine has solved all those invented negatives. The problem is, the data already shows CM does not suffer from virtually any of the negatives they invent, nor do they show their form “cures” those negatives.
Recently I was asked “…what is your preference on dumbbells compared to barbells? Does the increased amount of weight you can move on say, an incline barbell press offset the extra work by the stabilizing muscles if you were use dumbbells? Should dumbbells and barbells be alternated?”
And this is a great question worthy of a thoughtful response!
Let’s face it, getting old sucks! Hell I’m only 27 and sometimes I feel old. You get injured more easily, have less energy, and your metabolism slows down. Furthermore, metabolically speaking you become less insulin sensitive, less able to tolerate carbohydrates, and you also become less sensitive to amino acids. Several studies have demonstrated that elderly people require a greater amount of amino acids to maximize the anabolic response to a meal as compared to young people (1,2).
There seems to be some good news however! A recent study by Marzani et al. demonstrated that the defective anabolic response to a meal could be restored in elderly people taking an antioxidant mixture containing rutin, vitamin E, vitamin A, zinc, and selenium (3). Not only is this a big deal for helping to maintain muscle and maximize anabolism, but anti-oxidants have also been shown to increase insulin sensitivity (4). Therefore, anti-oxidants may have multi-faceted uses in preventing metabolic dysfunction associated with aging.
Going to the gym is intimidating enough, but not knowing how to pick the right weight to use for an exercise can make a novice’s trip to the gym even more uncomfortable. If you grab too light of a weight, you’ll feel you wasted your time, while too heavy of a weight can lead to injury.
But it is very important to grab the right weight. In a 12-week long study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers found that subjects gained the most strength when using a weight that corresponded to 70% of their 1 repetition maximum (meaning 70 % of the heaviest weight they could lift in the exercise).
During my recent talks in Bellaria Italy, a theme developed which reflects what I consider to be a problem in the way that most people think about resistance training. In particular, during one roundtable discussion on EDT training, I fielded numerous questions about the so-called “correct” number of sets, reps, rest duration, etc., etc., for EDT workouts.
Finally, I saw the underlying problem behind the various questions I was fielding: the attendees were focusing too much on the means of optimal weight training and not enough on the ends. As I thought about it, virtually ALL resistance training systems and philosophies focus on means, often to the total exclusion of the ends…
If I had to summarize the 3 most common resistance training mistakes (or to put it more kindly, inefficiencies) that people are guilty of during their workouts, my “terrible triad” could be summed up in a single sentence: “Slow, isolation lifts performed on machines.” Let’s take a look at each of these 3 components one at a time:
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